Fresh and Exciting

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Hard-working Martin Campbell (Richard Thomas) and his charming wife Susan (Mary Crosby) hit the big city for crucial business meetings which could make or break his career. She goes shopping and they plan to rendezvous for dinner later.For his final meeting of the day he shows up at the wrong address. It also happens to be in the worst part of town and the joint closes at 7pm. Then Martin gets hit with another unwelcome realization - the parking lot he left his rental car in closed up even earlier.His wife shows up just in time to be stranded with him as the cab driver who brought her speeds off. The cabbie and seemingly everyone else in the movie knows the area to be bad news for every kind of reason. For the unlucky tourists it is something they will discover the hard way as locals of a malevolent intent detect their presence and elect to give them a hard time for ill-begotten fun and profit.A cinematic cliché used far too often is the one where city dwellers get stranded in a rural setting and get brutalized by demented inbreds. The juxtaposition wherein small-town folks find horror in the big city is far more believable and I speak as a city dweller who dreads going certain places downtown. Numerous big North American cities are host to large critical masses of people on illegal drugs or off of necessary prescription drugs or both.Eventually after a nightmare of an evening Marty comes to blame himself because it is accurate that he is at fault. Susan tells him the mistake he made was one anybody could have made. In the year in which this film was produced it might well have been a mistake anybody could have made. But we have cellphones now, Google maps, GPS etc now.The suspense depicted here seems very real. Richard Thomas - long typecast as a wholesome farm-boy from his years on 'The Waltons' gave one of his better performances in this production.Not only are there solid performances by the leads but the supporting cast is particularly convincing. Michael Cavanaugh, Jordan Charney, Jeff Corey and Jonathan Goldsmith were always great.

The problem with this sort of movie is that you watch it and find yourself saying or thinking either what you would have done if you were in that situation or what the protagonists ought to have done. It is hard to just switch off and accept that the characters would really do what they are doing or that the events would unfold in the way that they do if they are implausible.But, of course, when a possible way out of danger takes place only halfway through the movie, you know it is going to fail. The movie raised these questions for me: 1. Would everything really just grind to a halt like that as early as 7:00pm? 2. Would people really be that unhelpful in that part of town? 3. Would the streets really be so deserted? 4. Surely, sooner or later they would have stumbled upon a hotel/motel? 5. If someone offered to pay you to drive them somewhere that was a short distance away and they looked reasonably sane, wouldn't you at least try to negotiate? It reminded me of 'The Warriors', where the streets are made to seem more menacing by the use of camera angles and music. The street-gang seems hellbent on getting the couple for little more reason than taking a shine to the wife ... but was this enough motivation? They are all set to kill the husband when he had done nothing to provoke it. Only at the end are the police shown to be helpful. It was like in that part of town, you are only safe in daylight. But there is only 1 street-gang roaming these 'mean streets' and they are suitably toned down to TV movie level ... no guns, no foul language.The Marty character seems a bit too unhinged too early ... he beats himself up because he went to the wrong bar for a business meeting and seems insecure that he is trying to make it in business on his own. It seems a little signposted that he is going to snap later. He ends up smashing store windows as if to be saying 'If this doesn't bring the police, then nothing will' and naturally it doesn't. The two main characters ask 'Why can't we just get out of this?' and you might share that frustration too. To rely on public payphones seems ludicrous today but one has to remember the movie was made and set in 1985 but I was cringing during the scene where Marty tries to get the police to come to his aid by saying he is near a building called 'Mill something Building' and the cop says 'You are near a mill?'. And the number of the payphone has numbers scratched out so that can't help either and the police can't trace the call very quickly. And then the police ring Marty back on the payphone (we assume it is the police) so they know which payphone he used but still don't send a squad car and the gang-member hears the phone ring. This is all supposed to add suspense and danger but is annoying.

This movie was filmed in Chicago Illinois. I was unemployed and looking for work when I stumbled upon this movie being filmed. The movie underwent many title changes before it was released. I think the plot was original but the way it was laid out could have been better. During the filming of this movie, both of the leads walked around downtown without bodyguards and melted into the crowd. It was as if nobody knew there were celebrities around. I got to meet both leads and I talked to Richard Thomas but he went to a limo and fell asleep before I could get his autograph. On the other hand, they called Mary Crosby to the set for a scene in which they thought she was needed but she wasn't. She went back to her trailer and en route, I tapped her on the shoulder (ok not a smart move but it worked out) and got her autograph. She was very nice about it. I'm sorry they were stuck in such a somewhat lame movie especially since they are very good actors and deserved better. I saw the finished product on TV and was pretty disappointed considering how hard the cast worked to make the movie a good one.

I started watching this movie right after it started, so I didn't know what it was called or anything. I was on a cruise ship, and it was 2:30 in the morning, and there were no commercials, so until I got back home, I had no idea what it was. Thank God for IMDB. Anyway, I thought it was a serious dramatic remake of "THE OUT OF TOWNERS". It had almost the same plot, only not played for laughs. Every thing was played for suspense, and with Richard Thomas in the lead it was even more dramatic. I like watching him act, but he is so over the top dramaticly. But that's why I like watching him. The movie wasn't great, but it didn't suck either. I had to stay up till the end, because I was interested in the outcome, so that says something.It revolves around Thomas' character going to the big city for a job interview, and he goes to the wrong bar to meet his would be boss. By the time he finds this out, it's an hour after the time they were suppossed to meet, and his car is locked in the parking area until six the next morning. His wife comes to meet him, and before he can tell her to stop the cab she brought, it leaves, and they are stranded. Now why they just didn't walk back to a more populated area is beyond be. I've been to New York and Chicago, and you can always get to a populated area, especially at seven in the evening, and also the fact that Thomas drove his car to the bar, that alone should say he knows how to get back. But then we wouldn't have the next hour of the movie where they get chased by gangs, dogs, and other such riff-raff.All in all, not a great movie, but like I said it didn't suck. Spideyy